A wiki is a Web site that allows users to add and update content on the site using their own Web browser. This is made possible by something called wiki software, which runs on a web server. Ultimately, the vast majority of the content - which could be anything from documents to birthday announcements and photos of the last company Christmas party - was created by users. Within a company, those users may be staff or customers.

The term wiki comes from the Hawaiian phrase wiki wiki, which means "super fast." And that's just what can happen to the growth of a company that creates its own wiki. But it's not just because it improves workflow: it's also because you're creating a culture that fosters growth.

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia created by users, is probably the best known use of wiki software. The site gets over 600,000 visitors every day, and about 175,000 edits or contributions. The percentage of edits to users is impressive, and is an indication of how important it is to create a collaborative business culture.

There are companies all over the world that, even though they don't necessarily pay well, have an intensely dedicated staff. It's because of the collaborative culture they've created. Every one of their employees feels like their job isn't really 'going to work', it's a family, and a mission, and it's fun!

Google is probably the best example. I'm certain many Google employees prefer the office to home.
Not all companies can afford to offer Google perks like onsite childcare, free meals cooked by excellent chefs with offerings like macaroni and cheese with wild mushrooms and truffles, or a $1,000 subsidy if you buy an environmentally-friendly car. And most companies are definitely not set up to allow their employees to bring their pet to work.

But every company can afford collaboration software, and the wiki software and other features and functionality are an excellent start to creating a culture that makes people want to come to work.

It's true that collaboration software increases productivity and saves money but, if used correctly, it also helps you attract and keep dedicated employees. They feel more like the company belongs to them. And there's nothing quite as motivating as a sense of ownership. 

If you're checking out Central Desktop, or need tips on how you can put it to greater use, you might want to check out our Use Case Studies. We list various features and functionality of our collaboration software - client management, document management, project management, extranet, intranet software, workflow solutions, wiki software, and many more - and each has a link to case studies of customers whose primary usage of Central Desktop involves that feature or functionality.

We've had this on our site for a while, but with our recent site changes we've also made this section more sophisticated and easy to use.

Most of the case studies also include brief audio files of interviews with the customer, telling us about the problems they were trying to resolve and exactly how they did it with our collaboration software.

Another unique tool we're hoping you find helpful is the See it in Action feature (click the See it in Action link on the full case study), where you can see actual screenshots of that customer's implementation of the Central Desktop features that have been most helpful for them.

Check out the Bua Consulting page as an example. We recently did a customer spotlight on Bua - they consult online businesses and operate across the globe. By using Central Desktop, they've dramatically changed their business.

Check out our Use Case Studies page for more info on how our customers have used Central Desktop's collaboration software to resolve their business problems. You might find some really great ideas. And, of course, you'll find out more about what our collaboration software can really do!

As many of you probably know, last week the Enterprise 2.0 Conference took place in Boston. Isaac Garcia, our CEO, Cheryl Smith, our Internet Marketing Director, and Krystal Roemer, who coordinated everything, and I went. I'm Sam Patel, Central Desktop's Director of Business Development. We just got back and we all thought it was fantastic.

We hosted two gourmet Customer Appreciation Dinners at restaurants around the city. At the dinners, we got a chance to visit with many our customers, and the events themselves were as fun as they were informative. We met a lot of people who are really excited about our product and gave us some incredible feedback. It's been great hearing what people have to say about CD; their responses have been positive & we have no doubt many of their suggestions will help us improve the Central Desktop user experience and deliver even better service. They got a chance to learn more about us too--many of them were unaware of a number of advanced features of Central Desktop. It was nice for everyone to visit and get a feel for how other companies were using Central Desktop. It seemed like everyone got a lot out of it.

We had a booth at the Expo Pavilion which was very successful for cultivating future Business Development Partnerships. A lot of these potential partners will be able to expand their offerings by promoting Central Desktop to their corporate enterprise customers. People were very responsive to the benefits of partnering with CD.

We have several different categories for partnerships:

• Affiliate partners (generally entrepreneurs, SEO affiliates, and bloggers) receive one of the highest affiliate payouts in the industry, including residual revenue.
• Resellers (VARs, ISVs, and Consultants) can implement and sell Customized Central Desktop implementations as their own solution, making money on the initial implementation, as well as an on-going monthly basis.
• Technology Partnerships can work where we integrate their technology or they integrate ours, ideally quickly expanding distribution for both solutions.
• Strategic Partners generally have strong distribution channels, where adding our product to their line-up creates a quick new revenue stream.

The biggest benefit to partners is the ability to quickly add a new revenue stream to their business, which includes:

• Custom branding to keep current clients comfortable
• Integrating a proven, award-winning, cutting-edge product to their current offerings
• Benefiting current customers by introducing a product that can revolutionize their businesses
• Support help to get their program off the ground
  • a dedicated Business Development Manager
  • Marketing Materials
  • Joint partnership announcements
    • Newsletters
    • Blog Posts
    • Press Releases
    • Listing on the partners page
  • Training
  • Customized special offers
  • Customized landing pages
• Real-Time commission tracking

In general, we partner with companies in market sectors such as small & medium sized business (SMB), small office home office (SOHO), office supplies, consulting, non profits, and on-demand software providers / SaaS companies--we've got a wide range of great partners, and I'm looking forward to expanding that much further.

All in all, Enterprise 2.0 was a lot of fun and a huge success for Business Development; I can't wait for the next conference in November.

Interested in becoming a Central Desktop Partner? Fill in our Partnership Application. It will come straight to me & I'll take care of you.

Stephanie McDonald, personal trainer, Team Universe Championship competitor, and founder of Austin Adventure Boot Camp, has made it her mission to motivate and inspire men and women to lead a fit and healthy lifestyle and achieve their fitness goals. Her award winning training and fitness classes have helped hundreds!

But after a short time in business, Stephanie was getting overwhelmed with paperwork. She hired an operations manager but, even then, organizing and keeping track of Boot Camps in 8 different locations, involving everything from registration to scheduling, tracking and taking care of hundreds of clients simultaneously, was grueling.  

Stephanie needed Central Desktop's collaboration software. She tried a lot of other solutions before she finally found us - but now task management, workflow, scheduling, client management and database management is a breeze.

Central Desktop helped Stephanie whip Austin Adventure Boot Camp into shape - the perfect match for someone who's dedicated to doing the same for others.

How has Central Desktop's collaboration software helped?

• Day-to-day operations time reduced by 75%
• The most grueling part of her job takes 5 minutes - it used to take an hour.
• Client management is seamless.

Find out how two award-winners - Central Desktop and Austin Adventure Boot Camp - teamed up to take a great company to the finish line!

Welcome to Central Desktop's weekly Twitter roundup, where we highlight some of the best twitter posts.

Here are our top picks for what's buzzing on Twitter:

Evangelists

@YearofBlogger Central Desktop Launches First Micro-Blogging Tool Fully ...: Our new micro-blogging feature is the first truly .. http://bit.ly/qppqA.

@ReadWriteWebRSS Community Platform Central Desktop Joins the Microblogging Fray : Central Desktop, a leading SaaS com.. http://bit.ly/14cjJz by @Ookong

@JamiePappas Twitter has come to influence the Central Desktop roadmap by listening to feedback @Isaacgarcia

@themobilityguy New blog post: Mini Review: Online Collaboration With Central Desktop http://bit.ly/3waayt

@cletch checking out the new update function from w/in CentralDesktop while prioritizing work 4 tomorrow

@digiphile Hearing from @isaacgarcia that they've closed $10k+ deals for @centraldesktop over Twitter. They thought it was a joke in 8/2008. | #e2conf

@benpopps This update coming live from the new @centraldesktop 'status update' feature (with twitter syndication).  #e2conf

@Replies

@Ed_Sullivan Enjoyed our engaging chat at #centraldesktop breakfast this AM @isaacgarcia @samirvpatel
@centraldesktop @benkepes krystal, cheryl #e2conf

@ittags @centraldesktop very nice and clean new website! Thumbs up

@danlarsen @centraldesktop I'm interested in attending ur breakfasts at #e2conf Hoewver it's going to feel like 4:30am for us west coast tweeps #jetlag

@seo_joe @CentralDesktop is having free breakfast Wed 7:30AM 4 Boston execs & conf. attendees: http://budurl.com/tp8u

@tienanh @Centraldesktop the new status update feature is great - please connect it to #twitter

@SOSIowa @centraldesktop Do u give free accounts to nonprofits? Would be a great marketing tool. Volunteers addicted, take service back to office.

Retweets

@alanbush RT @centraldesktop Central Desktop has a new Corp. Site!! check it out! http://www.centraldesktop.com -- OOOH Shiny. Nice work

@mitchgroup Retweeting @isaacgarcia: http://twitpic.com/87rnl - Panelist view #e2conf #e2conf21 "how twitter changes everything" #centraldesktop

@gyehuda Nice new site guys RT @centraldesktop: have you checked out our new site? http://www.centraldesktop.com/

@fending RT @centraldesktop Recession Causes Rising IT Project Failure Rates http://budurl.com/8kuq

@WoodyMc RT @centraldesktop: Enterprise 2.0 - Special Needs for Non-Profits, Community Groups & Associations http://budurl.com/8x9d

Prospects

@MikeNGarrett Looking for collaboration software like concept share. Any recommendations?

@JMPfeiffer Looking for the best gratis alternative to Basecamp, the @37signals web-based project-management tool. Any ideas?

@SVTgroup We are choosing a project management tool - any suggestions?

#FollowFriday

@centraldesktop #FollowFriday picks ---> @jilpnack  @billives  @clarashih @panklam  @e2conf

Thank you to all our customers and followers and as always, if you didn't make this list, there will be more round-ups!  Keep Tweeting!   Follow us on Twitter @centraldesktop

Today, we officially launched and released a fully integrated micro-blogging tool into the Central Desktop platform.  While the feature is influenced by the functionality of Twitter and Micro-Blogging, we are calling and describing the feature "Central Desktop Status Updates."

The Status Update feature accommodates our customers desire to integrate Twitter-like functions into their day-to-day activities, but for business, and more secure, and within Central Desktop.  Business-centric Status Updates brings a new dynamic to how people communicate within a collaborative environment.

Instead of a binary update that you would see in Recent Activity Log that "Isaac Uploaded a File" or "Isaac  Completed a Task", Status Updates allows the user to inject meaning and context into their activities.

For example, I can post an update to Central Desktop that "I'm giving a briefing to Rob Koplowitz from Forrester Research" or that "Isaac is trying to make a PHP class behave like an array."

These statements provide context to the activities that I'm working on - far more context and meaning than a binary statement such as "Conference Call with Forrester" or "Checked-In File."

An added value feature that we also included into Central Desktop Status Updates is the ability to also update Twitter and Facebook with your status as well!  This accommodates repetition and allows Central Desktop users to punch through the corporate firewall (in this case, Central Desktop) and connect with the outside world (in this case, Twitter and Facebook). 

[No word on LinkedIn integration yet. We have not received very good support from LinkedIn to tap into their API.  Someone tell LinkedIn to respond to our requests as our customers (and their customers) want our apps to talk together.]

As part of Central Desktop Status Updates, you can post an update via SMS text directly into Central Desktop as well!

In case you are wondering why we've "jumped on the 'Twitter-Bandwagon', let me summarize:

1. Our customers want it.
   
   
2. From a business collaboration perspective, micro-blogging is only relevant to business users in a business context - and does not belong in the public domain or in a separate application.
   
   
3. Central Desktop's Pure SaaS Social Technology Platform is about the People and our customers wanted to provide a secure way for their employees and users to leverage "Twitter-like" functionality for the purpose of business.
   
   
4. Central Desktop Status Updates bring micro-conversations "into the firewall" in a protected environment instead of in the public domain.
   
   
5. Central Desktop Status Updates eliminates the need to toggle between networks to post updates to multiple networks (Twitter, Facebook, more to come).

I'll be talking more about this topic later this week in Boston at Enterprise 2.0 (I'll be on a Panel titled, "How Twitter Changes Everything."  I'll share more details about the thought process of why we integrated Status Updates and how we were influenced by the "Twitter-Wave."

Again, this is about the people and empowering them to communicate more...too collaborate more.  As I wrote in a previous post last week about Business Adaptation, business is becoming people-centric rather than technology-centric.  Central Desktop Status Updates enables and empowers users to communicate in real-time and interact in new, relevant, contextual ways, for business. 

Circa 2002, the internet had just gone through its first burn-out but was revving up for its next re-invention.  Technorati was the way to search blogs; Blogger wasn't Google; PhotoMatt had just started Wordpress, and "Cmdr Taco" at Slashdot could still bring down servers.

When the bottom fell out of the tech sector in 2000-2001 it didn't only kill off then worthless companies, it opened up the trap door to let in the bottom-feeders:  the spammers.  It was about this time that email started to get really ugly.

By now, everyone had multiple email addresses (mostly Hotmail or Yahoo accounts; Google didn't launch Gmail until mid-2004), and boy did we have a mess on our hands.

The Downward Spiral

In 2002, CNN via TechWeb reported that "Spam may overtake e-mail in 2003."

By 2007 it is declared that 95% of all e-mail sent in 2007 was spam.

In 2009 Spam Assassins knocked-off some major defenders, but shortly after the New York Times reported that "Spam [was] Back to 94% of All E-Mail."

Prior to this, Email was the most convenient way (not the most efficient way) of communicating with folks - but it was becoming more and more difficult. Not only did spam clog up our in-boxes, it interfered with our productivity and our ability to communicate and share files with one another. In effect, it interfered with our ability to collaborate and connect with other people.

In tandem to this mess, we were getting bombarded with instant messages from our friends and colleagues (because email was too slow). In addition to multiple email accounts, we all had multiple instant message accounts as well (still do!). Nevermind the security issue - the real issue was the noise. Too much noise.  We needed a better way.

Social What?

It is here, right about this time (circa 2003-04), that Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites arrived.  Social networking represented a new way for us to communicate and connect with each other.  Instead of dealing with the mess of email, we connected through a webpage and posted messages to our friends. Around the same time that social networking was born, a sudden resurgence in business collaboration occurs as a result of an obsession with the term "Web 2.0" coined by Tim O'Reilly.

Shortly after, in early 2006, Twitter is founded and all hell breaks loose.

Millennials. Email What?

Simultaneously, Millennials were entering college and looking for different ways to connect with each other - ways that mirrored how they texted each other on cell phones and instant messages.  A 2005 Pew survey reveals that "Internet users from 12 to 17 years old say e-mail is best for talking to parents or institutions."

In 2007, Chad Lorenz of Slate Magazine wrote about a teenager's life without email:

Let's think about this from a teenager's perspective. First, you'd never send an e-mail to 200 friends saying, "It's Friday and I'm ready to party!!!" But with a Twitter tweet or a Facebook status update, you can broadcast such a message to all of your buddies without seeming like a total dweeb. Need to make your party plans for Friday night? You'd be a fool to send an e-mail and twiddle your thumbs waiting for responses; it's speedier to exchange IMs with your friends. If you then need to tell those friends how awesome they are for joining you, post a message on their Facebook or MySpace page, so the world can see. And mobile phones take instant--and constant--contact into a whole other realm. You can argue with your girlfriend all night without having to leave the party. Then, the next morning, you can change your Facebook relationship status to "single." And there you have it--a whole weekend of social drama lived out and publicized without a single e-mail.

So How Do We Adapt?

How do we, as business workers, deal with the change that is upon us? How do we hire and manage a workforce that 'doesn't like to email,' and prefers to Poke you on Facebook than to pick up the phone and call you?  How do we leverage technology to be better workers?  Better managers? Better companies?

For the first few years at Central Desktop, we always emphasized the technology, the infrastructure, the application, the product. And while people are more productive as a result of the technology, the focus of the success (and the reason why people buy our product) is because of the people, not the technology.

For years we solely described ourselves as 'collaboration software.' But when we spoke with our customers and asked them how they were using Central Desktop they remarkably replied with the same answers:

"We use Central Desktop to connect our people located in disparate offices."

"...to collaborate with our contractors and vendors outside of our company."

"...to manage our people and projects more efficiently."

"...to gather feedback from our employees."

"Central Desktop makes me and my people more productive."

Notice the theme?  It is all about the people.  It wasn't about the project, or the cool graph, or the audit trail, it was about the people.

As a result, today, we work hard to emphasize the people and are constantly looking for new ways to accommodate "the people." We strive to build software that connects people and embraces the 'social' component of what they do, but instead of just 'bringing Facebook to the office', we strive to keep productivity and business value top of mind.  It's not just about bringing social tools into the office - it's about bringing value and meaning to the office.

Even as 'early adopters of Twitter ' it took us several months to find any business purpose for it.  For months we lampooned Twitter.  But then, I started using it; and our customers started talking about us on it, and our media and analyst contacts were using it, and now the Iranians are using it.

What We Mocked, We Have Come To Embrace

Twitter, as a communication tool, has changed us too.  Not only has Twitter become a useful customer support and marketing tool (see my prior post on this topic), but Twitter has vastly influenced our Social Technology Platform as well. Based on customer feedback and internal research, we've decided to integrate micro-blogging (we call it "Status Updates") into our collaboration platform (we are officially announcing it at Enterprise 2.0 next week in Boston). We found that our own usage of Twitter and our customer's usage of Twitter was 'yet another stream (channel) of noise to manage.' It was 'yet another application to manage and toggle with.'

The Status Update feature accommodates our customers desire to integrate Twitter-like functions into their day-to-day activities, but for business, and within Central Desktop!  Business Centric Status Updates brings a new dynamic to how people communicate within a collaborative environment.

Instead of a binary update that you would see in Recent Activity Log that "Isaac Uploaded a File" or "Isaac  Completed a Task", Status Updates allows the user to inject meaning and context into their activities. For example, I can post an update to Central Desktop that "I'm giving a briefing to Rob Koplowitz from Forrester Research" or that "Isaac is trying to make a PHP class behave like an array." These statements provide context to the activities that I'm working on - far more context and meaning than a binary statement such as "Conference Call with Forrester" or "Checked-In File."

I'll be talking more about this topic next week in Boston at Enterprise 2.0 (I'll be on a Panel titled, "How Twitter Changes Everything"

Are You Adapting?

So how is social technology helping you grow your business? How is social technology helping you execute your business?

Are you still stuck in the ways of email?  Don't worry, it isn't going away tomorrow, but email is going the way of snail mail; and for good reason.  Email is less immediate, less flexible and less personal.  Social Technology allows us to communicate and work transparently, in more personal ways with each other.

Businesses fear losing control.  For years, business owners and CIOs worked hard to control their people; but they can't anymore. It is virtually impossible to control how your employees work, how they connect, and how they communicate. Unless you lockdown their internet access entirely (not likely) your people will look for alternative ways to communicate and collaborate, (and they should).

Peter Whitehead at Financial Times quoted Gartners' Steve Prentice today:

"Company boards don't recognize what IT is or does any more," he says. "It used to be a thing that you used to increase productivity or automate processes, but that's been done. Even chief information officers, who thoroughly understand enterprise IT, have been left behind by social IT - which they can't control."

Today's business is transparent, people-centric and turning hierarchies upside down, and it is because of the technology. It is the technology that grants more freedom to employees.

Today's workforce (even the 'old folks') are blogging, posting and Twittering. They have figured out that there are better ways.

Instead of emailing a file, they post it to Google Docs.  Instead of calculating in Excel and circulating for input, they post it to Google Spreadsheets. They coordinate their meetings via Facebook and Skype.  They network and hire through LinkedIn. They emote and market themselves on Twitter.

The fact is that the workforce is changing as a result of the technology. We are adapting - for the better!

New Platforms Emerging

As such, technology providers are adapting too.  While a student can manage multiple applications and logins to communicate and share information, a business user can't.  Students and consumers don't share the same security concerns that businesses value (often as a result of the customers they serve).  Business users need more.  What is emerging are platforms that consolidate these tools under one umbrella for business.

Instead of creating content on Google, communicating via email and IM, collaborating via wikis and connecting via Facebook, business users need platforms that bring it all together.

Platforms that embrace the social technology that people are already using but in safe, configurable environments.

Social Technology is changing the way we work. It is harder to hide in your cubicle (and it should be!). A transparent and connected environment fosters people to work openly in a network that embraces the idea that everyone knows EXACTLY what everyone is doing.

CD's file sharing, document management, and 'tasks and milestones' are just a few of the features OST uses to help clients win government contracts.

A government contract can propel a small or medium-sized company into a large enterprise faster than just about any other business development initiative - and that's exactly what has happened to some of OST Global Solutions' clients. They do their job very, very well. But Central Desktop's collaboration software has made them even better.

OST, the initials of Olessia Smotrova-Taylor, the company president, not only helps you write proposals that win contracts, they also identify potential opportunities, analyze key buyer and buying influences, hot buttons and needs, and work with your team to prepare a comprehensive capture plan including competitor analysis, partnership opportunities, and more.

OST is a one-stop shop for companies that want to grow their business by winning government and commercial contracts, and with Obama's plan to ensure government business is available to more companies, bus dev in this direction couldn't be more promising.

What has Central Desktop's collaboration software done for OST? Central Desktop's file sharing, document management and client management features have

• saved time and money by 30%,
• shot their production through the roof, and
• enabled them to quickly create a customized branded portal that's so easy to use, they don't even have to train their clients.

Find out more about OST and see exactly how they use Central Desktop's collaboration software to supercharge their own growth, and that of their customers.

The Enterprise 2.0 Conference is coming up next week and we'd really like to see you there! We're in the Exhibit Hall Tuesday, June 23rd and Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 from 11:30am to 6pm, and we're also hosting five special events.

CEO Isaac Garcia will host three Enterprise Breakfasts:
  

• On Tuesday the 23rd you'll be the first to share in the release of our new micro-blogging feature and see how it's used internally to comment, share news and reach out to staff and customers.

• On Wednesday the 24th we'll discuss social technology for business and how it can actually increase productivity.

• On Thursday the 25th we'll explore Central Desktop as a SharePoint Alternative.

We'd love to have you join us for a great breakfast and some information we hope you'll find useful. Seating is limited, so register now for one or more of our Enterprise Breakfasts.

Also, if you're a CD customer and live or work on the east coast near Boston, you are invited to our special Customer Appreciation Dinners.

Please mark your calendar and join us for a fun evening of great food, drinks, and conversation as we celebrate you!  Space is limited to 20 attendees at each event, so please reserve your spot now.

When:  Tuesday, June 23 or Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 7pm Sharp

Where: Legal Test Kitchen (Tuesday), Maggiano's Little Italy (Wednesday). Both are in Boston.

And don't forget you can get a free Pavilion Pass including access to all the keynotes, Expo Pavilion, and sponsored sessions by going to the Enterprise 2.0 registration page and using the registration code: CNAAEB01

See you there!!

Isaac Garcia, co-founder and CEO of Central Desktop, will be speaking on a Panel at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference titled, "How Twitter Changes Everything." 

The panel will be hosted by Jessica Lipnack (CEO, NetAge)  and will include panelists Bill Ives (Social Media and Blogger Consultant), Clara Shih, (Salesforce.com's Social Networking Alliances and Products Strategy) and independent consultant Patti Anklam as well as Isaac Garcia, Central Desktop co-founder and CEO.

The Panel will explore how Twitter differs from other social applications and how your business, organization, practice, and/or communication style can benefit.

Although Twitter is still in the early adopter stage, companies large and small are jumping on the bandwagon, and it's paying off. From such notables as Carl's Jr., Dell, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, H&R Block, CNN and Comcast (10 Comcast employees are twittering) to small local businesses, Twitter has a place for just about everyone. And that's why it's earned a special place in this year's Enterprise 2.0 Conference, and in the hearts of enterprise software users.

Don't miss How Twitter Changes Everything: June 23, 3:30 p.m., to find out how Twitter can enhance your enterprise 2.0 initiatives.

• For a free Pavilion Pass including access to all the keynotes, Expo Pavilion, & sponsored sessions go to:
• The Enterprise 2.0 registration page and use registration code: CNAAEB01